North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell follows Margaret Hale, a young woman forced to move from her quiet Southern England home to the industrial Northern town of Milton, where she develops a passionate sense of social justice and a turbulent, love-hate relationship with the mill-owner, John Thornton. The novel explores the societal and economic tensions of the Industrial Revolution, contrasting the rural "South" with the mechanized "North" while examining class divisions, workers' rights, and the clash between Southern gentility and Northern pragmatism.